


Just Call Me Bagheera

by Erya



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Lucifer Morningstar is an actual panther, Lucifer Morningstar just wants pats, This changes surprisingly little in Chloe Decker’s life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 10:00:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8886592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erya/pseuds/Erya
Summary: In which Chloe is short one partner but mysteriously plus one panther.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is accrues’ fault. Please direct any and all blame to her. This has been your daily public service announcement. Thank you.  
>   
> Also thanks to the lovely firewhistle  for her repeated and vehement insistence that Lucifer, if transformed into anything feline, would be a panther and not a house cat. Enjoy!

Chloe Decker is having one of those mornings.

She'd slept through her alarm only to be awoken by a bundle of excitable eight year old bounding hard onto her bladder, had to forgo her usual black coffee in virtue of dropping Trixie off at school relatively on time and all but raced into the precinct to begin yet another glorious (ha) day of fighting crime only to find -

A panther. 

An actual, real live, honest-to-god, living, breathing _panther_. Sitting on her office chair. 

For one optimistic moment, Chloe thinks that maybe she is hallucinating, or dreaming - yeah, still wonderfully fast asleep in her wonderful welcoming bed and any moment now her alarm would go off and she'd have a great laugh with Trixie about her weird dreams.

She pinches herself. 

Nope. It's still there. 

There's still a _panther_ happily sitting on _her_ chair, tail twitching back and forth from where it elegantly droops down from her seat. 

_What the actual hell._

Chloe looks at her colleagues. Maybe this is all an elaborate prank, maybe it's a tame panther, oh yes, the good old fashioned haha-we-snuck-a-panther-into-your-chair famed office prank _she'd never heard of_ , but no. Her colleagues - trained and experienced detectives - are all sitting casually at their desks chatting, working away, like this was any ordinary Monday. 

Chloe stares at the panther - wait, no, is that wrong? Is that like a sign for it to attack her? Should she stay still? Or is that for dinosaurs? Damn, Jurassic Park has a lot to answer for. It stares back, licking its chops slightly. (Crap, that's bad, right?) She reaches, very slowly for her handgun, just in case.

She edges away towards Tim, the detective whose desk happens to lie the closest to her quivering knees. 

‘Tim?’

Tim takes his earbuds out of his ears. ‘Oh, hey Chloe, how are you going?’

She stares at him. ‘... Great. Just. Great. Hey, look Tim, sorry to ask, but can you please explain to me why there is a panther in my chair.’

Tim, a grizzled older detective in his fifties, looks puzzled. ‘Panther? Oh yeah, the panther.’ He chuckles. ‘Yeah, he's been there for a couple of hours, hasn’t bothered anyone. We offered him coffee a little while back but he seemed good.’

Chloe blinks at him. She’s known Tim for eight years now and while he's a pleasant enough guy, she’s never known him to have a sense of humour, let alone crack a joke. 

She looks around. None of her other colleagues have even looked up and Tim is, even now, popping his earbuds back in, apparently unconcerned.

The panther is looking at her. Chloe could swear it's smirking. (Can panthers smirk? Is that a thing?)

Chloe decides she needs reinforcement.  
  
\--  
  
‘Dan?’ 

‘Hmm? Oh, morning Chloe.’

‘Dan. Um. This is a strange question.’

‘Yeah? Go for it.’

‘Haveyouseenthepantherthat’sonmydesk.’

‘What? Sorry, Chlo, I didn't catch that.’

‘There’s a panther. On my desk. Well. My chair. I don't. I. _Why_ is there a panther in my chair?’

Dan, to Chloe’s relief, looks just as confused about this _situation_ as she does. 

‘Wait, are you serious?’

‘As a heart attack. Which I feel like I've just had.’

‘Wow. Okay. Let's, um, let’s check this out.’

They do.  
  
\--  
  
The panther is still there. Because of course it is.

It's fastidiously licking its paw, while gazing with apparent boredom at Chloe’s - somehow unlocked - desktop. Its ears suddenly prick up as they enter the bullpen and its head swivels around to look directly at them with large, luminous eyes. Its tail starts swishing again. 

Chloe and Dan stare at the panther.

The panther stares back.

Chloe looks at Dan, helplessly. 

Dan blinks. ‘Huh.’  
  
\--  
  
They call Animal Control. 

It's Dan’s idea and it's a good one. They try speaking to the Lieutenant, but Olivia, like Tim before her, seems oddly unconcerned about the giant carnivore taking up valuable LAPD time and office space. 

She - weirdly - just gives Chloe a case, ‘to work with that gorgeous partner of yours’, completely deaf to Chloe’s protests of the impossibility of working given the _giant panther_ sitting at her work station. Chloe is just dismissed, her ears ringing with her Lieutenant’s lecture on professionalism. 

It does however give Chloe an idea. She calls Lucifer. Lucifer, as much as she likes and respects him, can kindly be termed as ‘weird’, even by his friends. The panther at her desk is weird. Maybe he'll know what to do with it. But no, she just gets his voicemail. _Weird_.

She tries Maze and Dr Martin, but they both seem unsure about where he's taken himself off to. Ten minutes later Chloe comes to the conclusion that she is unfortunately short one partner and plus one panther. Typical.

By the time she’s exhausted her investigation, Dan thankfully informs her Animal Control has been notified and are on their way.

Dan and Chloe stand in the break room while they wait, nibbling nervously on bagels while keeping a firm eye on the panther, who, it appears, has decided to go to sleep, curled up across her desk, long, obsidian chest rising and falling softly. It would almost be cute if it wasn't so alarming. 

It's pretty weird even for a panther, Chloe thinks. For one, it's slender, with long lean lines of muscle and a sharp face. For another, it has weird markings on its back like white, elongated patches of fur, the kind you sometimes see on house cats after they'd gotten into one too many fights. Had someone abused the poor animal?

It also hadn’t really… done anything. No mayhem, no murder. It hadn't even tried to maul anyone yet to the best of Chloe’s knowledge. No, it just seemed content to sit at her desk, clean itself and - had it been eating her Cool Ranch Puffs? That can't be good for it.  
  
\--  
  
Animal Control arrives with tranquilizers and probably cattle prods and Chloe thinks great, they'll evacuate the building and take the panther away and this will all be over.

This is not what happens.

Animal Control turns out to be two female zookeeper types and one guy. They approach the panther who wakes up and stares at them intensely. It makes a low growl of a noise and Chloe worries. 

But the zookeepers don't tranq it and the panther doesn’t eat them. 

No. Animal Control start _patting_ it. And stroking it. And calling it ‘good boy’ and ‘handsome fella’ all while the panther’s tail swishes back and forth and it purrs. 

Chloe and Dan stare at it. The panther stares back smugly. 

Score Panther: 2  
Chloe Decker: 0  
  
Great.   
  
\--  
  
Chloe decides to work at Dan's desk. The case, thankfully, appears to be relatively straight forward, if really boring. The murder by two GSWs of a local boxing ring proprietor, Mark Abraham. The main suspect, one Josiah Jones, is a rival boxing ring owner who'd made a number of very loud, very blunt death threats to him over a number of months. So far, so dull.

Lucifer would hate it, she catches herself thinking. The suspect is known to the LAPD so hopefully it should just be a matter of checking Jones’ usual haunts and shaking his known associates down until he falls out.

Ella drops by to give her forensic findings. Chloe decides to raise the panther in the room. 

Ella seems _delighted_. Because of course she does. Chloe needs some normal friends, she really does. 

‘Oh yeah, he's _beautiful_ , isn’t he? You're so lucky!’

‘Lucky.’ Repeats Chloe flatly.

‘Yeah! Wish I had a panther show up at work! Best I've had at the lab is the odd cockroach. This sort of thing happens all the time in Chicago PD, you know.’

‘... Panthers showing up the middle of the precinct?’

‘Nooo. Cockroaches in the lab. I think it's the scent of decaying flesh, personally.’

‘Well, that’s… gross.’

‘Yeah. Lucky you! Give that handsome panther a pat for me, will you?’ Ella winks at Chloe.

Chloe stares her down.  
‘Yeah. I won't be doing that.’

‘Sure you won't.’ Ella says knowingly. She walks backwards out of the bullpen, giving Chloe a cheeky thumbs up on the way. 

Chloe groans and decides that even a boring case is good if it gets her away from all the crazy.  
  
\--  
  
Chloe is up to her third boxing enthusiast and is bored. She refuses to acknowledge she misses Lucifer’s chatter. He may be annoying and generally wildly inappropriate, but at least he always had a way of enlivening even the dullest cases, of making work something _fun_. Chloe can’t believe he just went AWOL like this today, she thought he'd been getting better at this, more responsible. She guesses she was wrong. 

As she walks down South Street, Chloe is struck by the strange suspicion she is being followed. She slowly turns a corner, reaches for her handgun and waits for her stalker to turn the corner.

Only for a large, black panther to casually stroll up and sit on its haunches before her. 

Chloe stares at it. It (‘he’ did useless Animal Control say?) stares back, somehow looking pleased with himself.

Chloe can’t believe this is her life. 

‘Seriously? Did you follow me here?!’

Aaand now she's talking to a panther. Great. 

The panther’s only response is a slow flick of his tail.

Chloe glares at him, putting away her gun. ‘What are you doing here? Shoo. Go - home or wherever it is you come from.’

Is it her imagination or is the panther looking a bit sad at that. Yeah, definitely her imagination.

Chloe sighs and backs away. ‘Well, I'm going to do my job. Just, shoo, will you.’

The panther does not shoo, but does lurk about ten feet behind her. He probably thinks he's being subtle. Oh well. Chloe counts those ten feet as a win.  
  
\--  
  
Turns out having a panther follow you about can be helpful when apprehending alpha male pro-fighter homicide suspects. Who knew. 

The panther growls at one criminal informant, stalks another and all but _mauls_ yet another one who foolishly tries to tower over Chloe to intimidate her. It makes Chloe’s job suspiciously easy. However it's also highly _illegal_ and means any evidence she’s painstakingly gathered over the past four hours is all but _useless_.

After the near-mauling, Chloe loses it and winds up shouting at a panther in the middle of a crowded third-rate boxing ring. The panther’s ears go flat, right against his weirdly delicate skull and his growl seems to hold a distinct whimpering note for once, before he finally, grudgingly, pads away from her, tail literally between his legs. 

Chloe refuses to feel bad. He's a _panther_ and probably belongs somewhere else, like a zoo or a circus. _Not_ with a busy cop with an already errant annoying partner.

She is busy focusing on how much she _isn't_ feeling bereft of her partner or her panther when shots ring out and two bullets narrowly miss Chloe’s scalp. Chloe ducks behind a barrel and curses. She's in a derelict alley behind Jones’ boxing ring, where she received vague, unsubstantiated reports that the man may be holed up. There’s nothing here except her, Jones and the barrel. She’s trapped and backup is at least five minutes away. 

She tries to reason with the man to no avail and is forced to take a few shots at Jones over the barrel, ducking his return fire, back and forth and back and forth until - shit. She’s _out_. 

To his credit, it only takes Jones a moment or two to realise this before he's strolling malevolently out into the open, taunting her while she hides behind the barrel and curses him, Lucifer and _herself_. 

He’s only a foot away, slowly expounding on his escape plans _once she's dead_ when a low, rumbling growl resounds behind her. 

The next thing she or Jones knows, a big, black, _furious_ mass of pure muscle and sinew springs up the alley _straight at Jones_. Chloe watches in shock as the panther takes him down, paws on either side of his head, giant, bulging haunches directly above Jones broad shoulders. Jones is screaming, terrified, and the panther is snarling, lowering his enormous jaws and mammoth teeth towards Jones’ neck. And his _eyes_ , are they glowing? What the _hell_?

‘ _Lucifer_.’ The word is out before Chloe is even aware of thinking it. It makes no sense, why would she call the panther by Lucifer’s name -

But it _works_.

One minute the panther is obviously contemplating consuming Jones raw and bloody, the next his head springs up and is looking straight at Chloe with what she could only term as a look of astonishment. 

Then the panther is all but bounding off, politely sitting on his haunches and peering at Chloe, for all the world looking innocent. 

Chloe stares at him before being roused by Jones whimpers of terror. She automatically goes and cuffs him, reads him his rights on autopilot all while staring at her panther, who is licking his paw, somehow appearing _smug_.

What the actual hell.  
  
\--  
  
When Chloe gets back from booking Jones, the panther - her panther - is playing with Sgt. Jeffries, a lovely woman in her fifties clearly possessed of both a laser pointer and incredible patience. He's dancing around the bullpen, tail swishing madly, most of the cops in the room watching and occasionally applauding - until he catches sight of Chloe standing, hands on her hips, surveying the trail of destruction and upturned furniture he's left in his wake. 

He abruptly skids to a halt against her desk, looking suspiciously like a cat caught mid-embarrassing fall. 

The room freezes for a moment, breath collectively caught, before Chloe starts snorting in laughter. 

The panther almost _bounces_ happily in response.  
  
\--  
  
It's five PM and Chloe’s putting the finishing touches on her paperwork. The panther had fallen asleep some time ago and, without seemingly being aware of it, had slowly drifted towards Chloe until his enormous head had ended up nestled in her lap. Chloe absently pets him while she types and scratches lightly at his ear, deeply amused by the occasional rumbling purr he emanates. 

It's like this that Dan finds them, his look torn somewhere between concern and amusement.

‘Really, Chloe?’ 

Chloe shrugs best she can without disrupting the over-sized cat in her lap.

‘He did save my life, Dan.’

‘Yeah,’ says Dan. ‘Only you.’ He chuckles wryly.

For a moment he looks at the picture they make and looks just a little wistful. ‘Hey, you don't think I could-?’ He trails off and makes an awkward patting gesture. 

Chloe glances down at her lap and grins slightly. The panther is twitching slightly in his dreams, paws and haunches bunching slightly as though running. ‘Sure,’ she murmurs. ‘Go for it, he’s pretty gentle.’ Well, apart from the near-mauling. Let's not mention that.

Dan grins boyishly and tentatively creeps closer to them before slowly reaching out and gently touching the panther’s brow with one hand. 

The panther snuffles briefly, then one large eye blinks opens and fixes directly on Dan’s face. Dan freezes. 

Slowly the panther uncoils and stretches before deliberately, inexorably, stalking towards Dan who stands, wide eyed. 

Without warning, the panther abruptly leaps up, placing two giant paws on Dan’s chest and pushing him to the ground with a _thud_. Dan yelps while Chloe shoots to her feet, alarmed. 

They both watch, shocked, as the panther gradually lowers his head right up to Dan's, huffing hot breath in Dan’s face. Dan’s eyes are enormous and they both stare at the panther, hearts in their throats.

Dan scrunches up his face in terror, awaiting what he is sure must be certain death, only to feel a large, wet, hoarse tongue lick a stripe up his cheek.

Dan yelps and the panther bounces off of him and trots back to Chloe, butting against her thighs and purring with evident satisfaction.  
  
\--  
  
Come home time, the panther makes himself scarce, which Chloe tells herself is a good thing as she’s not certain she could have kept her daughter safe from her panther (or vice versa). She does find herself feeling a little disappointed though, and hopes he at least finds somewhere safe to keep for the night. 

At least she has pictures for Trixie to coo over when she gets home.  
  
\--  
  
When Chloe Decker comes at work the next day she has no idea what to expect. 

She arrives at her desk to find herself short one panther (she tells herself firmly she's not disappointed) but plus one formerly AWOL partner.

‘Nice of you to grace us with your presence.’ She tells Lucifer, thumping her bag down onto her desk. ‘Care to tell me where you were yesterday?’

Lucifer looks wry. ‘You'd never believe me if I told you.’

Chloe scowls at him, in no mood for his patronisation. ‘Try me.’

Lucifer grins. ‘Why, Detective, I was right where I always am.’

‘Uhuh,’ she says dubiously. ‘So what, at Lux? Creating mischief?’

He grins incorrigibly. ‘Well, I suppose you could say the latter.’

She snorts at him. ‘Fine. Keep your secrets.’ She sits down with a groan. ‘Hey, I bet you'll never guess what happened here yesterday.’

‘Oh?’ Lucifer’s smile is a little too broad, a little too knowing. ‘Do tell.’  
  
\--  
  
She never knows what to say when she spots him mucking about with Sgt. Jeffries’ laser pointer. 

Or that time he leans right into Dan’s space and - to Dan's eternal disgust - lightly licks his cheek.

God, her partner is _weird_.

And, she supposes, she wouldn't have him any other way.


End file.
